The Spouter-Inn; or, A Conversation with Great Bookshttps://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/Wed, 20 Mar 2019 19:13:34 +0000en-USSite-Server v6.0.0-17332-17332 (http://www.squarespace.com)Suzanne and Chris @ Megaphonic.fmSuzanne and Chris talk about great books—but what does "great" even mean?Suzanne and Chris talk about great books—but what does "great" even mean?Suzanne and Chris talk about great books—but what does "great" even mean?noChris Piumachrispiuma@gmail.comepisodic5. Little Women.The Spouter-InnChris PiumaTue, 19 Mar 2019 15:11:00 +0000https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/5599db6208419c24160ad4a03:5c32a667b8a0455ef9d2fdd6:5c8fd8fe53450aa2180d3416

‘In spite of the curly crop, I don’t see the ‘son Jo’ whom I left a year ago,’ said Mr. March. ‘I see a young lady who pins her collar straight, laces her boots neatly, and neither talks slang, nor lies on the rug as she used to do. Her face is rather thin and pale just now, with watching and anxiety, but I like to look at it, for it has grown gentler, and her voice is lower; she doesn’t bounce, but moves quietly, and takes care of a certain little person in a motherly way which delights me. I rather miss my wild girl, but if I get a strong, helpful, tender-hearted woman in her place, I shall feel quite satisfied. I don’t know whether the shearing sobered our black sheep, but I do know that in all Washington I couldn’t find anything beautiful enough to be bought with the five-and-twenty dollars which my good girl sent me.’ (ch. 22)

Little Women has Suzanne and Chris tackling new territory: a novel, a children’s book, and something written within the last two hundred years. They discuss this tale of four sisters (Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy), the possibilities it offers young women (but eventually takes from them), its complex exploration of gender, and its fascination with death.

]]>The Spouter-Inn; or, A Conversation with Great Books.Suzanne and Chris look at Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women.Suzanne and Chris look at Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women.no00:59:4255. Little Women.full5. Little Women.4b. Bonus: Timothy Perry on The Book of Peace.The Spouter-InnChris PiumaWed, 06 Mar 2019 18:00:00 +0000https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/4b599db6208419c24160ad4a03:5c32a667b8a0455ef9d2fdd6:5c7f0a5fc830252df619d007We met up with Timothy Perry, medieval manuscript and early book librarian at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto. The Fisher is excited to announce the acquisition of a rare and lavish medieval manuscript of The Book of Peace, written by Christine de Pizan (whose classic The Book of the City of Ladies we discussed in our last episode). Tim was kind enough to show the newly acquired book to us and tell us about its many charms.

]]>The Spouter-Inn; or, A Conversation with Great Books.Timothy Perry, medieval manuscript and early book librarian at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto, shows us a newly acquired medieval manuscript of Christine de Pizan's Book of Peace.Timothy Perry, medieval manuscript and early book librarian at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto, shows us a newly acquired medieval manuscript of Christine de Pizan's Book of Peace.no00:36:354b. Bonus: Timothy Perry on The Book of Peace.4b. Bonus: Timothy Perry on The Book of Peace.4. The Book of the City of Ladies.The Spouter-InnChris PiumaTue, 05 Mar 2019 15:39:00 +0000https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/4599db6208419c24160ad4a03:5c32a667b8a0455ef9d2fdd6:5c7d7a32f4e1fc2e94099494

When the evil Julian heard this voice, he reproached the torturers for not having removed enough of Christine’s tongue, telling them to cut it so close that she would be unable to converse with her lord Jesus. They cut off the whole of her tongue, right down to the root, but she spat out these remains in the tyrant’s face and blinded him in one eye. Speaking just as easily as ever, she exclaimed, ‘Tyrant, what was the point of your removing my tongue so that I couldn’t praise God when my spirit will praise Him for evermore whilst yours is damned for all eternity? It’s only fitting that my tongue should have blinded you, since you didn’t believe my words in the first place.’ (3.10, pp. 222–23)

The Book of the City of Ladies begins with its author, Christine de Pizan, working in her study, and suddenly overwhelmed by the misogyny of so many of the great books surrounding her. She is visited by three women—personifications of Reason, Rectitude, and Justice—who instruct her to build a city, and offer her biographies of all the illustrious women who will live in (and therefore be) the city. Suzanne and Chris explore this classic medieval anthology: the ways in which women have made themselves heard; the physical effort of creating both cities and manuscripts; and the echoes Christine’s book has both with other great books and with our own experiences today.

]]>The Spouter-Inn; or, A Conversation with Great Books.The Book of the City of Ladies, by Christine de Pizan, is a medieval feminist classic.The Book of the City of Ladies, by Christine de Pizan, is a medieval feminist classic.no00:57:5244. The Book of the City of Ladies.full4. The Book of the City of Ladies.3. The Metamorphoses.The Spouter-InnChris PiumaTue, 19 Feb 2019 16:55:00 +0000https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/3599db6208419c24160ad4a03:5c32a667b8a0455ef9d2fdd6:5c6a347deef1a1de5b129bc1

“O gods, if any there be who will listen to my prayer, I do not refuse the dire punishment I have deserved; but lest, surviving, I offend the living, and, dying, I offend the dead, drive me from both realms; change me and refuse me both life and death!” [...] Even as she spoke the earth closed over her legs; roots burst forth from her toes [...] her blood changed to sap, her arms to long branches, her fingers to twigs, her skin to hard bark. And now the growing tree had closely bound her heavy womb, had buried her breast and was just covering her neck; but she could not endure the delay and, meeting the rising wood, she sank down and plunged her face in the bark. (Myrrha, at 10.483-498)

Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a long and curious poem, telling stories of people getting transformed into animals, plants, or stones; stones turning into people, and language getting perverted every which way. Suzanne and Chris talk about the issues in translation, the way language can be lost, creation and the natural world, Ovid’s ideas of gender and sexuality, and medieval (and later) interpretations of these stories. They also wrap up this first cluster—on so-called “foundational” texts that turned out to have an unexpected common theme—and announce the next cluster.

]]>The Spouter-Inn; or, A Conversation with Great Books.Suzanne and Chris discuss Ovid's Metamorphoses—and translation, lost language, the natural world, gender and sexuality, and medieval interpretations of these tales of transformations.Suzanne and Chris discuss Ovid's Metamorphoses—and translation, lost language, the natural world, gender and sexuality, and medieval interpretations of these tales of transformations.no00:55:4033. The Metamorphoses.full3. The Metamorphoses.2. The Symposium.The Spouter-InnChris PiumaMon, 04 Feb 2019 15:27:00 +0000https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/2599db6208419c24160ad4a03:5c32a667b8a0455ef9d2fdd6:5c55c57afa0d6079fe937e56

“Imagine that Hephaestus came with his tools and stood over them as they were lying together, and asked, ‘What is it you humans want from each other?’ And when they were unable to reply, suppose he asked them instead, ‘Do you want to be so thoroughly together that you’re never at any time apart? If that’s what you want, I’d be glad to weld you together, to fuse you into a single person, instead of being two separate people, so that during your lifetime as a single person the two of you share a single life; and then, when you die, you die as a single person, not as two separate people, and you share a single death there in Hades. Think about it: is this your heart’s desire?” (29; 192e)

Plato’s Symposium is a curious text: a philosophical treatise on love, a play about a dinner party in classical Athens where the guests are all flirty and catty, and a story-within-a-story that goes at least five layers deep. Suzanne and Chris consider what it means to get intellectually pregnant, to philosophically crash a party, and to find your missing half.

For a young man all is decorouswhen he is cut down in battle and torn with the sharp bronze, and lies theredead, and though dead still all that shows about him is beautiful;but when an old man is dead and down, and the dogs mutilatethe grey head and the grey beard and the parts that are secret,this, for all sad mortality, is the sight most pitiful. (22.56-76)

Suzanne and Chris begin their conversations about great books with a very big and very old one: Homer’s Iliad. This Ancient Greek poem about the Trojan War is, of course, widely known, but if you haven’t read it (or if you haven’t read it in a while), you might not remember how complex (and downright strange) it gets with its reflections on war and the fallout of war. They also talk about the joys of dipping in and out of books, rather than reading them from cover to cover.

]]>The Spouter-Inn; or, A Conversation with Great Books.Suzanne and Chris begin their conversations about great books with a very big and very old one: Homer’s Iliad.Suzanne and Chris begin their conversations about great books with a very big and very old one: Homer’s Iliad. This Ancient Greek poem about the Trojan War is, of course, widely known, but if you haven’t read it (or if you haven’t read it in a while), you might not remember how complex (and downright strange) it gets with its reflections on war and the fallout of war. They also talk about the joys of dipping in and out of books, rather than reading them from cover to cover.no00:59:0611. The Iliad.full1. The Iliad.0. Coming Soon.Chris PiumaMon, 07 Jan 2019 01:08:13 +0000https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/0599db6208419c24160ad4a03:5c32a667b8a0455ef9d2fdd6:5c32a67740ec9a8d36d7eb7bReading is far from dead. More people than ever are reading—on Kindles, iPads, and phones, in paperbacks and hardcover. The choice of what to read is endless: new online content appears every morning, and many of us have that ever-growing pile of “books I might read someday.” Some of the books in that pile might be so-called “classics,” “great books” that have been read for hundreds—even thousands—of years. But who picks up a copy of Homer’s Iliad from the bookstore table, or downloads a copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy? These books aren’t always easy to begin, and the fact that you might have studied them in college or high school just makes them seem more like work and not play. It’s not always clear how to get into these books: Can you skip parts? Can you start at the end? Why isn’t this more like a novel?

At The Spouter-Inn, we want to invite you into a series of conversations about books—how they’re shaped, what kind of world they come out of, and how they speak to us right now. We’ll talk about how it feels to connect with minds from the distant past. Suzanne teaches these books for a living and likes nothing more than to talk about them; Chris is familiar with some of these books, less so with others. Whether you’ve done the reading or are just curious, join us for some conversation, here at The Spouter-Inn.

]]>The Spouter-Inn; or, A Conversation with Great Books.Suzanne and Chris talk about great books—but what does "great" even mean?Suzanne and Chris talk about great books—but what does "great" even mean?no00:01:380. Coming Soon.0. Coming Soon.The Spouter-Inn Episode Guide.Chris PiumaTue, 01 Jan 2019 20:13:00 +0000https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/episodes599db6208419c24160ad4a03:5c32a667b8a0455ef9d2fdd6:5c9290de53450ae84767faf2